By Brian Summers on June 1, 2015 / Comments Off on The Facebook Age: Monitoring Your Employee’s Productivity with Cell Phone Monitoring Software.

Everybody knows that since Facebook came on the social media scene it has controlled that market ever since (I mean does anybody even remember Myspace anymore?) and nothing looks to be changing in the near future. With social media being a daily part of most working people’s lives, sometimes people cannot control themselves and some of your employees may be using precious company time to update their friends on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. Employers need to keep a more watchful eye on employees and monitor the cell phone activity going on on their phones.

What the employees can be penalized for doesn’t just have to be described by the company policy, but by the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) as well. “According to the National Labor Relations Act, what constitutes as protected speech is anything that explicitly discusses terms and conditions of employment — whether it relates to how you’re treated at work, wages, breaks, anything that goes to the terms and conditions of your employment is considered protected,” as seen in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article. This act allows for more freedom for the employees.

Don’t let this freedom go to their heads though, because what you think is okay to say may not be. The biggest determining factor in the NLRA is whether or not a post falls under “protected concerted activity.” This is the activities workers may partake in without fear of employer retaliation and are usually analyzed through the terms and conditions of employment. An example, stated by the natlawreview.com, is a Texas veterinarian who posted a gory image of herself holding a cat killed by an arrow through its head. The photo was accompanied by this quote,

“My first bow kill lol. The only good feral tomcat is one with an arrow through it’s (sic) head! Vet of the year award… gladly accepted.

“And no I did not lose my job. Psshh. Like someone would get rid of me. I’m awesome.”

Well, this self-proclaimed “Vet of the Year” did get fired. This post fell outside the scope of the National Labor Relations Act and therefor left her vulnerable to being fired. The scope of this act is truly a grey area and depending on how vague your terms and conditions are. The further it falls outside the scope of your terms and conditions the less protected you become. This protects things like a civil discussion regarding workplace safety and general harmless office complaints.

We’ve seen just how important a company’s terms and conditions are to censoring an employee’s social media postings, but how do they know? While each company usually has a policy on social media, it’s sometimes employed through the honor system with no real way to monitor the behavior. Are the employers really supposed to go through and check everyone’s social media? Probably not. That’s where Auto Forward comes in! Auto Forward is a cell phone monitoring software that can monitor all activity on the employee’s phone, especially their social media activity. With the Facebook, Instagram and Twitter features of Auto Forward you are able to monitor all conversations, files and activities done through these applications.

Visit http://auto-forward.com to see how all of these features can work together towards making your workplace the most productive it’s ever been.